Hromadske journalist Yevheniy Shulhat was detained by Kyiv police on 27 July. The police stopped the taxi carrying the journalist and handcuffed him, claiming that Shulhat had violated registration rules for draft-eligible persons, Hromadske reports.
However, documents available to the Hromadske team show that the journalist was not in violation of any rules.
According to Yevheniy Shulhat, the police officers used physical force against him.
“It is unclear how the police officers could have known that a taxi passenger had violated army registration rules. The policemen did not want to see the driver’s documents, which gives reason to assume that the detention was targeted,” said Hromadske’s chief of investigations Yaroslava Volvach.
As part of the team, Yevhen Shulhat worked on news stories related to corruption in law enforcement bodies.
Updated. The Kyiv police commented on the journalist’s detention, saying they had checked the documents of both the driver and the passenger.
The police claimed that the passenger refused to show documents confirming his identity and military registration status.
After that, he was offered to visit an enlistment center to clarify his registration data.
“However, he resolutely refused to comply with the police’s lawful demands. In view of this, the police detained the man and took him to a district enlistment center to clarify his registration data,” the police said.
As per the preliminary reports by the police, Shulhat did not take the prescribed physical exam by a military commission.
The Institute of Mass Information has contacted Yevhen Shulhat for comment.
Previously
On 4 April 2024, Slidstvo.Info released an investigation into the wealth of Illya Vitiuk’s wife and mother. The journalists discovered that his relatives own at least UAH 25.5 million worth of real estate (at market value). Namely, Vitiuk’s wife Yulia bought an apartment worth over UAH 20 million during the war.
Shortly before the release, on 1 April, Slidstvo.Info journalist Yevheniy Shulhat was approached by the Solomyanskyi enlistment office employees in an Obolon district mall (Kyiv). The men tried to hand him a draft notice.
On 6 April, Slidstvo.Info reported that an SBU officer may have instructed an army staffing center to deliver a draft notice to their journalist. In this way, the special services wanted to punish the man for exposing the SBU head of cyber security Illya Vitiuk for owning elite real estate.
On 8 April 2024, the Prosecutor General’s Office opened an investigation into the draft notice incident.
On 9 April 2024, it was reported that Illya Vitiuk, chief of the SBU Department of Counterintelligence and National Information Security, has been suspended by the SBU head Vasyl Maliuk for the time of the investigation into the incident reported by Slidstvo.Info.
On 1 May 2024, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi dismissed Ilya Vitiuk from the post of head of the SBU Department of Counterintelligence and National Information Security.In September 2024, the Prosecutor General’s Office told Ukrainska Pravda that the pre-trial investigation into the attempt to hand a draft notice to the Slidstvo.Info journalist Yevheniy Shulhat by the employees of an enlistment office following his investigation into the family wealth of the SBU’s ex-chief of cyber security Ilya Vitiuk, continued. No suspicion notices had been issued at the time.
